working away.

Got my glasses fixed. They were hanging off one ear and across my nose, an inelegant opera glass style...which threatened constant meltdown. This morning when the lense popped out, I knew today was not optional...I had to drive into Ithaca to get them fixed. So, now. I am right as rain. I can see...and fear abated.

Am making lists and checking twice--trying to get the work done for next week.

Creative Quarterly got back to us. Kitty's portrait and Shady Grove were winners with Shady being a bronze. Two of the Memento Mori illustrations and a crow image were runners up. Exciting. My two girls in the front. Waiting for American Illustration and 3x3 and CA. Need to do CA: Design and Creative Quarterly 16 (due May) to keep it going.
Maybe this hawk image? Maybe as a design versus an illustration>/? hmmm.

Monday daylight savings time, day two.



I want to do a cupid and I do not have a confident handle on a head and body. After ripping up a bunch of blue line drawings, I figure I should really start sketching this a few ways before going live with a real ink drawing. So, the sketches above are from the sketch book--ink and whiteout--back and forth--thick white lines tapered with the black, black lines tapered with white. I think there is a kernel here...and I love the idea of doing just a bit of random drawings as I have enough to talk about in SF and can be whimsical for a bit. Am looking at Mr. Will Bradley who has a drawing style that kind of bridges the chapbook, primitive illustration style and his florid, wildly linear work. I was leaning over the stove this a.m. with my head in my Dover Bradley book and Rob looked over my shoulder and immediately saw the link. As usual, Rob pointed up the type, the lettering, the bigness of the letterforms. He reinforced how I need to start doing this too. He is right. Really right but another layer. However, I have a dozen valentines since January 1..So by end of April...who knows what I can do. Definitely an opportunity to edit. And more of the pentel brush pen and pentel presto party. Yikes. Too much.

Raining today. Pretending to be spring. Not loving this Daylight Savings Time changeover. This week is prep week for SF. Got stuff to print. Stuff to do for the foodies I am working for. Need to roll.

Notes before I start


Redrew the octopus valentine three times. I think I have it now. As R. keeps saying, that's what separates the work...strong design combined with everything else..and you know, the more you dog it, the better, tighter, more thoughtful the work becomes even if its just a bunch of simple lines. I think I may have something more scannable today so that the octopus can go to SF too. I will have a round dozen valentines and three looks at portraits for our contact period. I can keep working on the valentines post SF-- as I have a bunch more i want to do--but with the dozen, we could winnow it down to six and be done. Or even winnow it down to 4 and do two more and be done so I can work on other things like animals, the Garden of Eden, a series on superstitions, a series on monkeys, some chicken studies, finishing the Marie Antoinette line drawings and making a set from them...(that's an idea). I was looking at the Margaret Wise Brown Golden Book at Borders yesterday and thought about Easter and Spring pictures. Eggs give you a lot, and the animal quotient is there...Easter is a happy image time (except when you draw Friday and Saturday's religious pictures....then it gets good in a whole different way!). That fusion is an interesting idea.

Its rainy and deeply misty here. I dont understand it, but the last ski bus is today and though the weather isnt there--the teen beat decided that this was a fine thing to do...if anything just to hang out with their friends and drink tea all day. Fine with me, more time for studyhall.

Kitty got the other toe worked on yesterday with a treatment that may eliminate her need to have surgery on her foot for these toenail issues in the future. It wasn't as rugged yesterday--and she had greater spirits and bounce afterwards. I am happy we are on it immediately as her pain and internalizing has been sad during this time with these toes. I love it we can get resolution versus every three months coming back for more work, and more work, and more work though we love the doctor.

Spring is beckoning though I cannot get caught in the thrall. We always have snow into April...though things are unthawing a bit. The wonderbus is no longer a salt cake and the sedum are doing what I adore most, poking their little buds above ground to say "soon, soon". I am blessed the deer havent found them yet. Maybe all those grasses I got on sale in Corning will come up? and how about those rose bushes we put in? Maybe a posy or two? And the tree peonies continue to grow and bloom. So much to look forward to.

hmmm.


Some really nice news. I entered Creative Quarterly 15 and got a bronze, merit and runner up places. Creative Quarterly is devoted to design, illustration, photography, fine art--and the thinking, inspiration and reference that it takes to make these ideas active. There was an email yesterday posting who got in and the class of entry (with Jim O'Brien and Scott Bakal from both Syracuse and Hartford) but no idea of which piece(s) got in. We should know next week. And the cool thing I hadn't understood, the Creative QUARTERLY is a quarterly, with another submission deadline for May 1. Maybe the collection of valentines? And might have a few portraits...? And, the new choker album (one in the works...very nascent, but in the works none the less). The rolling exposure might be interesting...a focused approach to putting the face/the work out. Onward.

Back and forth on this piece for the West Coast designer. You know, I love working for only one Art Director, me. To that, R. had an unbelieveable idea that could use my current illustration hand effectively on product that we would produce and market through the shops at the Corning Museum of Glass-- which would be using what we know (R and me) about the market, about production methods etc. and outsource the making to the slew of talented people in Corning. We would design to a need (as the shops have a strong idea about what sells and what pricepoint). Slow going, small quantities which once we do a half dozen or so could be presented to someone like Crate and Barrel or to the cruise lines and crank it up. It is an opportunity to not make the paltry sums for the illustration and production knowledge we have and maybe be the ones to cash in. I am going to start researching this now. It would be a very interesting venture, a possibly explosive cash cow that we are in a good place to do. Could resurrect the college moneys lost. I am charged. Charged up.

No IF today

Couldn't bear it. Am way too balled up about all the stuff on my plate and the nine million illustrations I want to do before the end of next week to even consider the time around the entry, the finishing, the everything else. Nice news came via email yesterday. The Memento Mori Study that got into the Society of Illustrators Show (#51)was invited to travel in the selection of pieces from the entire event (3 shows)until August 2010. So, we thanked the Society, did the paperwork and Memento Mori is free to travel the world in style and return to me via Fed Ex around the same time our little Princess Kitty will be going off for her freshman year in college. YIKES>

Have been working on some names for a client with lots of No, this, no that in the name. I think I have come up with something that will work, that is really about the world they are in and, if that's not enough says Quality without having to say it. One Two Three...all they need to do is pat me on the head and say, "good girl" and I will wag my tail and collect a check (I hope).

I have struck all sorts of things off my list. I have conquered not falling off the elliptical trainer and almost am enjoying the experience. Am scheduling and rescheduling--looking toward the imminent summer and the planning for stuff for our High Schoolers to do, say, move on.

Am cleaning up the rose valentine. Copy this weekend. Am working on a birdhouse valentine (bits and pieces) and a thistle one as I couldnt resist using the intertwining thing. Also working on my bicoastal bird project. Trying to get the tissue right before we get going in the actual production. Am a bit anxious around this..breathe.

Wednesday flying by


Man, am I moving on stuff today. Click, click, click. Wrote a bit on my thesis. Arranged the party for the cast and crew at a local restaurant. Just need to layout the flier. Figured out the finals on my flight to San Francisco next Saturday. Did a quick thing for a friend. Organized and created 2 fed ex. Called in a bunch of prescriptions. Rescheduled a few things. Talked to a client or two. Roasted last night's chicken carcass with a mess of veggies and now have it on to simmer with water.

The job that the client found me by googling birds now has a signed contract and direction. Sounds like I may need to really crank it up and do it fast. A fun nice way to spend a day...albeit I am feeling a bit pressed with other work. Am trying to finish up the food project...and have spent a ton of time on it. I hope they like it..though it could be sad if they ditch it. They didn't ask for this, but my thinking is to present better and see where they go. Should be sweet.

Have a cute new valentine I am dying to do...fits the rest of the group. It was great seeing the work yesterday (yes, entered BOTH CA and 3x3...some big bucks out the door)--and may send a few things to CA design. I have decided against Print Magazine. Too old fashioned. Really love the online entry thing. Sure, it takes time--but at least it isnt tracking samples down, xeroxing, cutting and pasting, taping and cross checking to finally write a check and fed ex out things that will go in a landfill. With electronic entries, its sweet and quite smooth...CA's platform is very sweet and very visual.

Gotta go.

Tuesday: leaning into it


Just back from the dentist in Corning. It was a bit slick until Watkins...and then beautiful sailing til Corning and back. It was colorfully winter--with purple, blue, deep brown and golden. I came home the long way by Seneca Lake until the little turn off to take me through the Finger Lakes National Forest--with deer, and fields and trees. The deep blue lake had whitecaps with a layer of ice by the shore. There were limbs off some of the peach trees in Peach Orchard. Also, a distillery is opening on the uphill side of the west side of Seneca...new news. It is still definitively Winter..no buds, no yellow haze around the willow trees, yet... Yet.

Am trying to get my submissions to CA Illustration 50 and to 3x3 before the trip on the 16th. It is a real mental review to do this...and is revealing about what the last year was about (and CA makes it a bit more interesting as it is March to March vs January to January. So, some of the stuff I am leaning into right now can qualify. It always is surprising all the time that gets eaten up with these shows--but hey, I have to believe there may be some pay off...beyond the satisfaction of getting into some of them. Lisa Cyr is doing an article on Hartford for the CA Illustration Annual and needs some information/stories/ testimonials which I owe her too. I did a bit of thinking about this text and feel that there is an overlay on what HAS has done for you that is part of the thesis...so if I write it a little bit more carefully than the regular slop...I may be able to repurpose this.

Murray weighed in with some good insight on a valentine. So, this weekend, this will change out. Working on a hand drawn picture (need better reference ...hope to get today) of Alex Cassetti for a valentine , one of my valentines. it is wild to do an inking job with white out versus the vector job...I feel a bit like a pig on ice with this....too wild, too fast, too fluid and there is a wild thrill that goes with this. The sketch yesterday (below) is first blush. Big thing, need new reference. Feels good that it's only Tuesday!

Grey Sunday

I had to go yesterday as Kitty was going to have surgery on one of her toes...(unplanned) so I was called in for support. She was a trooper and with this new doctor, a real podiatrist, there may be a solution (permanently) without total nail removal for her. She just has nails that do the wrong thing, and for her to live a life without some sort of ouch or infection would be great. We had a nice dinner at Dijon with the boys making funny stories and eating good food to get her back in the game. We then went and saw the remarkable movie, Milk featuring Sean Penn which was so interesting as it is history during my life. Seeing it in a dramatic context --as a slice--was quite interesting as it created links and made both R and me to project out a bit down to today and how far we have come in one generation for so many people in previous generations who had to live a double life.

Study hall this p.m. Will finish the catfish. Will finish the black printer of the Rose valentine. Will continue to work on trace for the octopus valentine. Will print the Alex reference for the Alex valentine. This week , need to submit work to the 3x3 show, get rolling on the veternary labs work and get the contract written for a job that came in to me (an illustration job no less) when someone was googling. We will wait and see on this one. The vibe def feels right. I am very optimistic.

More later>>(incomplete image...type needed, more color to come)

Doctors office Saturday p.m.

Got Kitty to her play practice. The boys had their hair cut in Ithaca. So I have an hour or so to rework this fish which is part of a freebie I am doing for a local, talented entrepeneur who is coming out with some products. I cleaned up their original mark-- and just didn't think it worked. I redrew it again in illustrator-- and then, out of curiousity, did a bit of searching for this particular fish to find out the original image did not pick up the primordial flat tail, where the gills and fins were--the insignificance of the mouth etc. So guess what? I redrew. Wait... The nurse is beckoning me into the examining room with Kitty.

mini catch up


In the thrall of illustration. Just when I think I've got something, I go to sleep and have to redesign the entire thing...taking stuff out, adding stuff in, reworking curves, reworking scale...and it continues. However, the work is moving someplace, someplace resolved and refined. It's truly the tribute of a prod from Murray, my growing empowerment and frankly, hearing what random facebookers think of an image that has helped me. My initial explosion into illustration doing 10-12 solutions per topic...was really me doing a sketch process bigger than most. Setting em up, knocking em down, not seeing the need to revisit the design, rethink the curves, rethink the message. It reflected my need as a designer to get stuff done...done. No time to massage, or to have the patience to rework (and now, to some degree, that patience has to develop and design almost beccome as welcome as the lovliness of just making that inked drawing and seeing where the detail develops and grows--pushing negative and positive )

Now, I worry all of it...and in the case of the Octopus (which I like how stylish he is) he will be redrawn with another Octopus entwined. That's moving toward message of love versus a plunk inside of a plunk... (octopus inside of a heart, Dog inside of a sun shape etc.) Not only now, we have design, I also have a desire to have a bit more meaning than "look Ma! I can make pictures and people don't laugh at me". The needle is moving all the time...but the last two months have moved quite a bit. I do have until May for the paper to be written, so I figure I can write the paper and continue to develop the drawings until they need to be put into frames and hung on the wall.

Just took a load of trash to the corner along with recycling. Need to put a pork shoulder in the oven. (slow cook all day). Bought it from the Munson Road Amish folks who run a remarkable little store (they were pulling leeks out of the ground even frozen, last week). They sell their own freerange pork, beef, eggs, chicken. All beautiful and unlike going to the big guys around here, way competitive with the run of the milk meat and dairy.

I love our new President. Watching his "its not a State of the Union" State of the Union address was wonderful with all the pomp and circumstance combined with his lovely manner, his remarkable wife and all the hugging and love. If only we could get moving on this poor State--then we could start thinking bigger picture. But these details that this layer of money may help to rescue or renew, might be a paradigm shifter for some areas (like health care?)

The day awaits.

Image above is the starting point of a valentine that will have copy "My love is like a red red rose"--there will be a rosebud in the middle of the twined stems, some new leaves, and a few more details that need to be redrawn and stripped in. Behind the roses, there will be a lattice pattern dropped in. I think I will need to color this one...after all, the roses are red. Right?

monday late



Rolling on a bunch of illustrations--work in progress. First blush of the octopus. Need to develop it further. Sweetheart is new (redrawn, new type, new frogs, more design).

working...round one

Work in progress on NYC illo. A bit of a bow to Gris. Lots of work to go here. Seeing some things I like, seeing some things I don't. Just dont want you guys to think I am slacking off... as I am writing briefly, and posting nothing either. Have 3 more valentines in states of improvement/development. All parts for the prelim octopus is done. The Sweetheart valentine is done with a better frog and a bit of hand lettering. Have 1/2 of a rose valentine (playing with the reverse of the snake...different twists...--also want to do one that twists in the middle like a pretzel). Punch and Judy this week with maybe the indian one. So there will be a collection to view in San Francisco in around 2 weeks. Yikes!

back


Out and back yesterday to see Oneonta State and Hartwick. Very interesting and informative. We finally have some energy around all of this for Kitty (and surprisingly Alex). If any of you have high school freshmen, go do a college tour with an information session and you kid will say all the words you would have to say throughout their HS career (your grades mean something, GPA means something, have an interest, have a passion, read). It all went in both ears and registered. I think we may see some changed behaviors. It was nice being in the car yesterday all together. I knit a cap out of some chunky noro--and as it was so refreshing just to do this, I need to keep knitting because I cannot draw in the car.

So, we have today. I will do some grocery shopping and get back into my octopus valentine. I penciled the whole thing in quickly (I think it was an idea ready to be hatched) and was pleased with the original shape--but then looking at the reference and the very stylistic drawing, I couldnt immediatlely think of how to approach the suckers which are very decorative and equally as stylish. So, I just started to ink something in (I am soooo fearless with my new white out addition to the mis en place)--and badabing...I was on to something. Just need to make the pieces and by Monday I think I will have the black printer for this design. Plan on making a swishy water pattern to strip in. Have the piece above (not finished, more astudy for Will Bradley trees) in the works. Need to do Punch and Judy, the India/ Indian Valentine, finish the frog valentine called "sweetheart" and continue. However, if there is ski club tomorrow, I plan on starting the Juan Gris inspired tabletop of takeout food from NYC. Have an approach worked out (came to me in the shower...a "why not?") moment.

Discovered this great site for my bibliography (easybib.com). One types in the ISBN # and it grabs the book information, alphabetizes it and puts it in the appropriate MLA standard format. Easy Bib also does footnotes. A blessing.

R off on business tomorrow. Back Tuesday p.m. There is talk we may go try to see this japanese puppet troupe at Cornell Tuesday night. From the PR story, things could be breathtaking. Also, a very interesting may open up with a fairly famous theatrical/musical group in Central NY for me...need to play my cards right as this is a Paul Davis moment...a bit twitchy as it could be the right next step.

The store awaits.

Waiting

Am in the doctors office with my iPhone writing a blog entry-- not the most fluid, but it does the work. Kitty has something that we need to get in front of the doctor prior to any further development. As it's a break, it is great that the doctor can see her.

We go off tomorrow on a two day looksee of 3 colleges to get the ball rolling with K and back Saturday late as R is off on business first thing Sunday am. I get Sunday to provision and finish up some illustrations that need a bit more polish prior to saying " done"! Then I can start a few more valentines to round out the dozen-- then done. The clowns and comedia dell'arte characters next. A dozen there-- figures galore!

Gotta go-- this tapping so disturbing people.